August 2023 Wrap-Up

August was a great month of reading. I only have one book that I'm still working on, The Spirit Lens by Carol Berg. I was looking forward to reading this one because we are doing a buddy read with the author, but other books have gotten in the way, and so far after five chapters it's not compelling me to pick it up the way her other series did. So, I'm taking this one slow and will get back to it soon.

I got all my other planned reads done.

 

A Beautiful Disguise (The Imposters #1) by Roseanna M. White ended up being one of my favorites out of all the books I read this month. See my review of this one here.

 

 

Shadow Schemes (Tournament of Shadow #3) by Tilly Wallace was good, but pretty much more of the same. Not a lot of plot progression for the series, but I do like how things are going with Sera and Hugh. 3 of 5 stars.

 

I really liked Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot #23) by Agatha Christie. There was a sad element to it because the case he solves is an old one and not much can be done to right some of the wrongs. 4 of 5 stars.

 

The Clockwork Boys (Clocktaur War #1) by T. Kingfisher. It was enjoyable but not what I was expecting. See my review of this one here.

 

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn ended up not being as good as I hoped, but it wasn't bad. See my review of this one here.

 

Dragon and Liberator (Dragonback #6) by Timothy Zahn was the last book in the Dragonback series. I enjoyed this series and liked the way things were wrapped up in this book. 4 of 5 stars.

 

I also ended up reading quite a few other books this month that were not on my list. 

 

First there was The Olympian Affair (The Cinder Spires #2) by Jim Butcher. I really enjoyed this book and am so glad that Jim Butcher finally wrote it. See my review here.

 

Next, I decided to listen to the last two Philip Marlowe books I had on Audio. Playback by Raymond Chandler and Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker. I liked Playback a lot. I think Poodle Springs is my least favorite of all the Marlowe books, but it's also the one that Chandler didn't finish, and was finished by Robert B. Parker. I wasn't a fan of Parker's first Spencer For Hire book when I read it, so I think I probably just don't care for his writing in general. I don't know how much of the story was already written before Parker took it over, but I just didn't like the overall story. I gave Playback 4 of 5 stars, and Poodle Springs 3 stars.

 

Next I read the Setback (The Birch Creek Ranch #7) by B. E. Baker. This one ended up getting published a little early, so I had a copy sooner than I thought I would. I very much enjoyed this book. See my review here.

 

After The Setback I decided to listen to the sequel to Clockwork Boys, The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher. I reviewed this book together with Clockwork Boys.

 

I actually started Tsalmoth by Steven Brust at the end of July and I took it slowly and made my way through it a chapter at a time. It was a really casual buddy read and no one rushed through it. I liked that I was able to take my time with it and just pick it up when I felt like it. I enjoyed it, but I didn't feel compelled to pick it up all the time and I'm not sure why. As usual for this series, I enjoyed the humor and Vlad's way of telling the story. 3.5 of 5 stars.

 

 

And finally, I got to finish out the Super Powereds series by Drew Hayes with Super Powereds: Year 4. All of the books in this series have been long, but this one is super long at 60 hours and 37 minutes. I listened at 1.5 speed so it went by a bit faster, but it still took me several days to get through this book. I thoroughly enjoyed this series, even though the books are really long, and probably could have been edited down, I didn't mind it because it was so entertaining. I'm going to miss these characters. 4.5 of 5 stars.